A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation

Much of the Left has treated genetics as a right-wing fabrication by those seeking to protect the status quo or, worse yet, attempting to resucitate the notion of a master race. Of course, this statement should be qualified. The Left has no problems with genetics as long as it is applied exclusively to "physical" characteristics. In this last sentence we can begin to already see the cracks: how can there be such a neat division between the physical and the behavioral?In this IMPORTANT essay, Professor Peter Singer calls on the Left to reconsider its position. Certainly there have been those on the Right who have misinterpreted genetics in order to defend the status quo, defend racism, imperialism, etc; however, it is not reasonable to condemn genetics and the scientists working in that area just because the Right has attempted to appropriate the field for its ideological purposes. That is tantamount, in my opinion, to condemning physics just because some have applied it to militaristic purposes.It is sad to report, but there are a lot of people on the Left- and I am myself a Leftist- who thrive on tired bromides and have little tolerance for complexity. Of course the system, culture, and class that we are born into are important. Very few would deny that. However, these cultural phenomena arise from, conflate with, express and sometimes frustrate certain genetic constants of human nature. Denial of this has already had dire consequences for the Left.Where has there been a Party or government -Left or Right- that has not been rife with power-seeking, self-interested people?If aggression were supposed to disappear with socialism, then whydid the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia? Why did China then pillage Tibet, attack India and even make incursions into Vietnam? And for that matter, why were the Chinese and Soviets at each others throats after the early 60s?We on The Left can continue to put our head in the sand and deny the existence of human nature; in the end this will only turn into cynicism or lead others to neoconservatism (the ranks of which are filled with former trotskyists...in the US anyhow).The wiser choice, as Singer states, would be to take into account this phenomena and reconcile it with our aims of creating a more just society.Sure, this means admitting that people often act out of narrow self-interest. However genetics reveals another side of human nature also: the cooperative side of human nature. On this theme I would advise a close reading of the works by the biologists Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, especially their "Acquiring Genomes".Singer does not propose a program, but his work does challenge us to begin thinking about this important topic and formulating our tasks accordingly.

The purpose of this little book (I read it while walking the distance of 22 city blocks on a pleasant late summer day) is to counter some of the fallacies of both the left and the right hold with regard to the use of Darwinism in social science, and to suggest a better uses of evolutionary theory and findings. In it, Singer says that the application of evolutionary theory to the individual person on a micro-economic scale (aka Social Darwinism) is a misreading of the theory of evolution by misguided champions of the right. The survival of the genetic fittest is not equivalent to the survival of the economic fittest. At the micro-level of analysis, cultural evolution and existing economic conditions play a much larger role than genetically heritable traits. The poor aren't poor because they are genetically weak, and the rich aren't rich because they are genetically more fit. Spencer may not have intentionally created Social Darwinism, but there can be little dispute that this form of "common sense" philosophy has arisen, and that it reflects serious misunderstanding of evolution. And there is also little doubt that this ideological thread--that started with misreadings of Spencer and Darwin--continues to this day, and is especially strong in the most reactionary misuses of evolutionary theory.First, whether or not Darwin was a social Darwinist is irrelevant to Singer's point. Darwin's theory of evolution is solid science that has potential implications for human natures and human society. Other writers, politicians and economists created social Darwinism from misuse of evolutionary theory. The existence of social Darwinism as an artifact of the political right is asll that is needed to make Singer's point. Second Darwin's reputed standing as a social Darwinist is not only unsupported by the quote provided by the Australian reviewer below, it is in fact disproven by that quote. Darwin was commenting, quite understandably, on the possible genetic consequences of human medical interventions. When resistance to disease is medically induced, rather than genetically transmitted, the offspring of the survivors will not be "selected" to carry on genetic resistance to the disease. Rather than letting natural selection operate unhindered to continually improve human genetic fitness, cultural intervention creates a bias in the process. It hardly makes Darwin a social Darwinist to have said this, though some of the politically incorrect vocabulary (ie "lower races") he uses may be challenging and alarming to the contemporary reader. Darwin makes just the opposite point from the one that the Australian reviewer seems to think he is making. He is not saying that the "civilized races" genetically superiority to the "lower races" is causing their triumph of population. Instead he is alarmed that medical intervention may be harming the disease resistance of the species, and that the numerical replacement of the "civilized" over the "lower" may ind

In Singer's own words, this book is "a sketch of the waysin which a Darwinian left would differ from the traditional left thatwe have come to know over the past two hundred years" [60]. This is a very heavy little book which people who hold the values of the political left will be well advised to read very carefully for it's very constructive and sympathetic criticism."The left needs a new paradigm," writes Singer, as he proceeds to argue that the Darwinian theory of evolution should be the basis of that new paradigm [6]. In a nutshell, we should "swap Marx for Darwin."Singer explains how the left has been all too influenced by Herbert Spencer's arguments that Darwin's principle of natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, implies an ethical imperative which justifies laissez-faire capitalism, and the principle of "might makes right." Darwin's principle of natural selection, which says that generally only the strong survive, was transformed by Spencer into a moral principle, "only the strong SHOULD survive," which became popularly known as "Social Darwinism." This Social Darwinism was enthusiastically embraced by the right, in defense of ruthlessly unregulated capitalism as a natural and just eugenics program [10-11].Spencer's Social Darwinism, Singer points out, is not a necessary implication of Darwinism, and, most importantly, it overlooks the role of cooperative behavior in Darwinian evolution, as if competition is all there is to it [19].Marx himself embraced Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of the human species and the behavior of nonhuman animals, but drew the line between human and nonhuman behavior, rejecting Darwinian implications regarding human nature. Singer argues that this is most plausibly because of Marx's naive non-Darwinian belief that human vices such as greed were solely the product of social circumstances and his utopian hope of eliminating human vice through changes in social circumstances [24-5].Singer hopes that, in the light of the tragedies of Stalinism, Pol Pot, etc., the left has abandoned the utopian dream of the perfectibility of humankind, and will look to Darwinism for a deeper understanding of human nature. That dream, the intellectual hold of Marx's theory of history, and the idea of the infinite malleability of human nature are barriers to a Darwinian left. The removal of those barriers and a reexamination of the political goals of the left in the light of Darwinian insights on human nature should enable a Darwinian left to come closer to realizing its values.Setting out some of the tasks we need to face, Singer suggests that the time is ripe for "the development of a field of social research that shows the way towards a more cooperative society" [47]. In the end, Singer leaves us with some important questions:* "How can we build a society that is cooperative and offers a strong safety net for those who are unable to provide for their own needs" [46]?* "What structures can overcome the anonym